It feels like everyone in sales uses AI today, or at least says they do. I get why they do: speed, personalization, and the scale it delivers are hard to ignore.
But is AI really so effective for cold outreach? To see its true impact, we at Snov.io ran an experiment sending 3,000 emails with an AI sales agent. In this case study, I’m sharing the real outcomes and valuable lessons for future campaigns.
Ready to see the results? Let’s dive in!
Outline:
- TL;DR: Key results of our cold outreach campaign
- What is an AI sales agent?
- Why cold outreach needs AI in 2026
- Case study: 3,000 personalized emails sent with Snov.io’s AI Agent
- Lessons I learned from this case study
- How Snov.io’s AI Agent works
- Ideal use cases for the Snov.io AI Agent
- Ethical considerations for using AI sales agents
TL;DR: Key results of our cold outreach campaign
We put Snov.io’s AI Agent to a real test: sending 3,000 personalized cold outreach emails. We gave the tool prompts, so it built clear ideal customer profiles (ICPs) first, further generating impactful messages tailored to each persona.
By running these sales AI tools in a chain, we achieved higher relevance, lower bounces, consistent on-brand messaging, and data-driven prospect prioritization. This campaign boosted our conversion rates by 30%, saving us lots of manual effort.
Let’s cover some basic points before we get into this case study.
What is an AI sales agent?
An AI sales agent is an autonomous tool that supports outbound workflows, including prospecting, lead qualification, email drafting, follow-ups, and performance analysis. It operates under human supervision and may cover the entire sales lifecycle or its specific stages.
The most common functions of an AI sales agent include:
- Research: Agents analyze prospecting data to identify high-quality leads, prioritize them, understand customer intent, or build an ICP.
- Writing assistance and personalization: sales AI tools can draft personalized emails considering your ICP, intent signals, buyer stage, as well as other details.
- Cadence support: AI email agents help teams run sequences at scale, handling high volumes of interactions and ensuring timely follow-ups.
- Tracking: These tools also analyze performance, classify replies, and suggest next actions to improve your results.
For example, with Snov.io AI cold outreach agent, businesses can run high-volume outreach, ensuring each message reflects the brand voice and addresses prospects’ pain points. Perfect for smart scaling, this tool personalizes emails in bulk without sacrificing quality or compliance.
Why cold outreach needs AI in 2026
Here are key reasons why AI sales tools are essential for cold outreach now:
- SDRs are overwhelmed: Manual prospecting doesn’t scale, while an AI cold outreach agent accelerates lead search and qualification, letting reps focus more on actual selling.
- Recipients are fed up with generic emails: Automated messages with name or job title variables are no longer signs of real personalization. AI email agents offer greater relevance, tailoring messages to each prospect’s needs.
- Small teams lack resources to scale: Sales agents enable lean teams to operate like large outbound machines.
- Reply management is slow and inconsistent: AI email agents classify replies, prioritizing hot leads in real time to route next steps and improve engagement.
So, the outcome is clear: AI sales agents provide personalized cold outreach in bulk, higher relevance, faster iterations, and better conversion rates with no extra resources needed.
Our experiment below only proves that. Let’s see!
Case study: 3,000 personalized emails sent with Snov.io’s AI Agent
Below is how we set everything up and our key results from this experiment.
Goal
Our key goal was to see whether AI cold outreach agents can improve campaign performance metrics at scale while maintaining personalization and brand tone.
Experiment setup
We started by preparing a precise description of a company’s product. To ensure the most accurate output, we combined both AI-driven and manual efforts. Once the description was ready, we provided Snov.io’s agent with the context to generate complete ICPs.
For our test, we took 3 generated ICPs and gathered 1,000 verified contacts for each customer profile using the AI database search. As all generated personas came with data, it was quite easy to create the right prompts to collect prospects.
Next, we moved to crafting personalized messages, which appeared to be the easiest step. In a few clicks, we received 4 personalized email drafts generated by Snov.io’s AI Email Builder. We chose one option that best reflects our target and repeated the same email-generation process for all 3 ICPs.
Once all was done, we built our personalized cold outreach campaigns.
Key outcomes
We tracked opens only for 200 emails because our recent study of 44 million emails revealed that open tracking can affect deliverability and reduce reply rates. The result was a stunning 61.2% open rate.
As for reply rates, one of our ICPs peaked at 7.1%, which is incredible! Two other ICPs ranged from 3.2% to 4.3%.
So, we can conclude that using the AI sales agent resulted in a 30% higher average response rate compared to our previous non-AI experiment. A wonderful outcome, isn’t it?
What’s more, by making double email verification right in Snov.io’s app, we removed all risky, catch-all, and undeliverable emails. As a result, the bounce rate was held to 0.5%.
Overall, owing to Snov.io’s AI cold email agent, we’ve saved about 4 hours per campaign – half of a working day!
The subject line that has brought us most conversions contained {Prospect’s company} x {Our company} element:
Meanwhile, the best-performing CTA appeared to be the one that contained the question “Where would you like to go from here?”
We’ve summed up the results in this table:
The best part of using Snov.io AI Agent is its input-output guardrails. It clearly follows the brief and doesn’t make things up, so you don’t have to spend much time editing or rewriting its output.
Lessons I learned from this case study
Beyond the metrics, we’ve also got insights that will definitely be used when planning the next outbound campaign. Here are actionable learnings from our experiment of sending personalized emails at scale with an AI sales agent:
Personalized outreach wins
This case study shows that personalized cold outreach emails can increase reply rates by 30%. It’s easy to explain: prospects are more likely to respond to messages that feel relevant and crafted individually for them rather than generic pitches that often look like spam.
Better prompt – better output
The better you describe your company, product, or benefits, the more tailored and impactful the generated drafts will be.
The best option is to work in cooperation, as we’ve done with Snov.io’s AI Agent – it generated everything, including unique selling points, so we just made small adjustments to achieve a more accurate output.
AI agents work best in a chain
The ability to split tasks between agents helps significantly optimize the workflow. While Snov.io’s AI Buyer Persona Generator builds ICPs, its AI Search agent sources leads that meet those criteria.
It’s most effective when AI-powered assistants cover the entire outreach chain – from defining your target audience to analyzing performance and identifying growth opportunities.
Human oversight still matters
Even with the strongest AI, human touch is essential. Always review generated emails before sending, monitor your campaigns as they run, and stay involved in QA. When it comes to nuances, like pricing, objections, and legal questions, AI can draft options while a real person will negotiate and close deals.
Keep an eye on deliverability, reply quality, and sentiment trends. Analyze performance to quickly spot weak points in your strategy. We also recommend running A/B tests on subject lines, email content, and CTAs to see which approach works best for your audience.
A/B testing is crucial for optimizing cold outreach. Even a tiny tweak, like a period or an exclamation mark in a subject line, can impact reply rates. I recommend testing one variable at a time on similar ICPs so you can see what actually shifts results.
VP of Global Sales at Snov.io
⮕ Looking to empower your lead generation? Check out the 15 best AI lead gen tools we’ve selected for you.
How Snov.io’s AI Agent works
The Snov.io Agent is actually a set of AI sales tools that cover each stage of the cold outreach:
Let’s explore how you can build your workflow with the AI sales agent from Snov.io step by step.
1. Create your ICP with the AI Buyer Persona Generator
Start by defining who you want to reach. Understanding your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) or Buyer Persona determines the overall success of your sales outreach. The clearer your ICP is, the more likely you are to send the right emails to the right people.
To create your ICP with the Snov.io AI Buyer Persona Generator, choose the “Create targeted emails” option in your app:
Now go to the My products & ICPs tab, click “Discover ICPs”, and provide the link to your product or service.
The AI sales agent will start checking your website and other resources (if needed) to generate the most accurate description possible. Once it’s done, click “Next” to move further. Now, you can see a detailed description of your product or service, including its key features and striking benefits.
In my practice, descriptions generated by our AI sales agent are comprehensive and winning. However, just in case, review what it has prepared for you, make any necessary edits, and save your product to start generating ICPs.
After applying Snov.io’s AI ICP and Buyer Persona Generator, you will receive 8 personas you can easily save to your list.
You can add one more ICP with each next generation, creating up to 24 unique customer profiles per product. Each ICP includes details, like industry, location, company size, job title, pain points, etc., making it easier to create more personalized cold outreach emails.
2. Find prospects with AI Search
Now that you know your target leads, it’s time to let Snov.io’s AI Agent find them for you.
Go to the Finder section and jump into the Database search tab. Now, all you need to do is type in your ICP description so that our AI Search agent can set the necessary filters and show you the results that match your criteria.
To get the best results with AI Search, use clear ICP keywords when writing your request. Start with simple prompts; then narrow your search by adding filters one at a time.
For example, you can start with a short “Head of Talent Acquisition in New York” and fine-tune your results by adding industry, skills, company size, and more. Or write a longer prompt to get more specific results from the start:
You can also use details from your ICPs previously generated by Snov.io’s ICP and Buyer Persona Generator.
Here are the possible prompts you can input to Snov.io’s AI Search:
- [Job title] from [Industry] with [Skills]
Example: Marketing Manager from E-commerce with Google Ads experience
- [Job title] at [Company size] employee companies with up to [Revenue] revenue in [Location]
Example: Growth Lead at 50-200 employee companies with $20M revenue in Canada
- [Management level] in [Department] at [Industry] companies
Example: Managers in Sales at SaaS companies
- [Seniority] [Job title] in [Department] at [Industry] companies in [Location]
Example: Senior Data Analyst in Analytics at Software Development companies in the UK
- Find prospects from [Industry] companies with [Company size] employees
Example: Find prospects from Saas companies with 10-50 employees
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💡 Expert tip: If you need a prospect in a specific position, write your prompt as if describing a single person: Recruiter, Financial Analyst, Marketing Director, etc. If you want an AI sales agent to also look for related job titles, use plurals, like HR Managers, VPs of Sales, CRM Administrators, etc. |
⮕ Learn more secrets on writing prompts for the best AI Search results.
3. Craft highly targeted sales messages in AI Email Builder
Once you’re done with your lead list, our AI cold outreach agent will help you prepare personalized cold outreach emails. To get started, go to the AI Studio tab and click “Build my email”.
Now, all you need to do is select one of your products and ICPs, and our AI Email Builder will leverage every detail to turn descriptions into a clear offer and on-brand sales copy.
You can get your complete email draft with a single click, or select “Create step-by-step” for more human control and customization at each stage.
Once you choose the second option, our AI cold outreach agent will generate 9 unique selling points that will help make your emails more impactful. Pick up to 4 points that best reflect your product’s value to move forward.
You can also edit AI-generated points, add your own ones, or ask our AI email agent to craft more offers – totally optional! Once you’re done with your inputs, click “Next” to get four message drafts generated.
You can ask the AI email agent to regenerate variants or choose one you like most (or even all of them) for further adjustments.
You will definitely like how Snov.io’s AI Email Builder makes your draft more engaging in seconds. All you need to do is choose your preferences. Select the email formula that fits your goal, whether it’s to spark curiosity, start a meaningful conversation, or show how your solution solves customers’ pain points.
Adjust your email style to set the right tone and sound like legendary marketing experts and entrepreneurs, such as Amy Porterfield, Pamela Wilson, Bill Bernbach, and many more.
You can also use your own AI prompt to tweak specific aspects or parts of your email drafts, or edit the copy manually (yes, this is still possible with our AI email agent).
Once you’re fully satisfied with the email copy, you can launch your personalized cold outreach campaign.
And no worries, if you suddenly realize you need more tweaks: Snov.io’s AI email agent stays with you throughout the setup process. Just go to the Campaigns tab, find the one where you use this email, open its draft, and select the “Writing tools” menu.
With this feature, you can improve your writing style, change tone, or translate your email into 36 languages in seconds.
4. Identify high-potential leads with AI Sentiment Analysis
Once your campaign goes live, Snov.io’s AI cold outreach agent is ready to assist you with reply analysis as well. It provides Sentiment analysis to help you reveal interested prospects and focus your efforts on them.
How our AI sales agent works at this step: Snov.io does an automated sentiment analysis, reading each reply and assigning an interest level based on its tone and mood. Prospects are respectively scored as Interested, Maybe, or Not interested.
You can segment “Interested” and “Maybe” prospects for an instant follow-up outreach to convert their interest into decisions. Meanwhile, “Not interested” prospects may be used by you as a growth point: you can review their objections and adjust your offer to address them.
Ideal use cases for the Snov.io AI Agent
Snov.io AI Agent streamlines prospecting, tailors messaging to specific ICPs, and guides next steps from reply insights. As a result, teams maintain more targeted outreach with less manual effort and can scale without adding headcount.
Snov.io’s AI Agent works effectively for a wide range of users:
- Solo founders doing manual outreach
- SDR teams sending hundreds of emails weekly
- B2B startups needing enterprise-level outbound on limited budgets
- Agencies managing outbound for multiple clients
- Marketing teams supporting sales enablement with personalized campaigns
- Small or mid-sized companies launching new products or entering new markets with lean teams
With the ability to set the tone, add custom prompts, and craft persona-driven emails, this AI sales agent adapts to any scenarios where teams are seeking consistency and bulk personalization.
Ethical considerations for using AI sales agents
It’s crucial to ensure your sales AI tools operate safely. The Snov.io AI email agent runs in a protected environment, with databases secured by firewalls, data encryption, and OAuth2 authorization. The platform also safeguards your information by maintaining daily backups, so you can quickly recover your data in case of an incident.
Besides, as using AI cold outreach agents involves gathering and processing large amounts of data, you should also check the compliance with respective laws and regulations. Snov.io, for instance, adheres to GDPR and CCPA, meaning your and your customers’ data is safely stored and processed.
It’s also worth mentioning that although AI covers many key tasks, it doesn’t mean total human replacement. AI sales agents accelerate research and drafting, while empathy, judgment, and accountability remain human.
We recommend leaving a human touch for objection handling and final negotiation. Honor consent, avoid manipulative personalization, and combine the power of AI with your expertise to achieve remarkable results.
The combination of AI solutions alongside human judgment and expertise is what creates real ‘hybrid intelligence’ superpowers and real value capture.
Solution Associate Partner, McKinsey & Company
Key takeaways
Let’s summarize what we’ve learned from this case study:
- An AI sales agent is actually a set of tools that support full outbound or specific outreach stages. It can support research, email writing, campaign execution, monitoring, and analysis.
- Sales AI tools optimize cold outreach and help scale with less time and effort while maintaining brand consistency and personalization. That’s why they can be especially valuable for solo founders, lean SDR teams, startups, or small businesses.
- With clear prompts and a robust toolset running in a smart chain, it is possible to create personalized emails at scale and lift reply rates by 30% through more precise targeting and relevant messaging.
With Snov.io, you can empower every stage of your sales outreach – from building ICPs to developing follow-up strategies. So, if you’re looking to scale smart with minimal effort, you’re in the right place.
